Pass types and access zones

Setting up the structure that decides where people can go, before anyone is accredited.

Before you accredit a single person, you need two things in place: the areas of your site that need controlling, and the named levels of access that open them. Everything else in accreditation — allocations, approvals, passes, collection — depends on these.

Both live under Accreditation, on the Access Zones and Pass Types tabs.

Access zones

A zone is an area of your site that needs controlling: backstage, production compound, artist area, traders, working areas. Each zone has a name, a description and a colour.

Keep zones to the areas you genuinely control at a threshold. If there is no steward, no fence and no check, it is not a zone — it is just a part of the site.

The description is worth filling in. It is what stops two people on your team disagreeing about whether "Backstage" includes the artist compound.

Pass types

A pass type is a named level of access — Crew, Artist, Production, Contractor, Guest — and it is where zones get attached. Creating one asks for:

Pass type name — the only required field
Description — what this pass is for, and who should hold it
Colour — used on passes, on the collection desk and in reports
Access zones — tick every zone this pass opens
Available for guestlist — whether this pass type can be given to guestlist requests
Parking pass — marks the type as vehicle access rather than personal access
Total allocation — your ceiling for this pass type across the whole festival
Notes — anything your team needs to know internally

Choosing names and colours

Name pass types the way your team says them out loud. "Crew All-Access" beats "CAA-2026-INT". The name appears on the pass, in the approvals queue and on the desk at seven in the morning.

Pick colours that separate clearly at a glance and in poor light. A steward reading a wristband in the dark is matching a colour, not reading a word.

Parking passes

Tick Parking pass and the type is treated as vehicle access throughout. Parking passes are reported separately from crew numbers, so a supplier's vehicle allocation never quietly eats into their people allocation.

A parking pass still belongs to a named person — the driver — not to a vehicle, which is why it cannot change hands halfway through build week.

Reading the pass types table

The Pass Types tab is also your live count. Each row shows:

Zones — what this pass opens
Guestlist — whether it is available to guestlist requests
Allocation — your ceiling
Allocated — how many have been given out to organisations
Confirmed and Awaiting — where those people sit in the approvals process
Collected — how many have been physically handed over
Remaining — what you have left

You can search the list, filter by guestlist or parking, and sort by name, creation date or last change.

Changing things later

Pass types can be edited during the festival, and changes apply to everyone holding that type. Adding a zone to a pass type opens that zone to every existing holder, so treat mid-event edits as the significant action they are.

Deleting a pass type is possible but rarely what you want. If a pass type is no longer in use, leave it in place — last year's structure staying intact is what makes your records readable afterwards.

Where to go next

Allocating passes — handing quantities to suppliers and organisations
Credential approvals — working the queue of submitted people